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Tag: New Zealand

Seagrass restoration, seabirds, and sea turducken! Thursday Afternoon Dredging: November 2, 2017

Posted on November 2, 2017November 2, 2017 By David Shiffman
Uncategorized

Cuttings (short and sweet): 

  • Watch this skate seen on a SCUBA dive in Scotland! Video by Catherine Hollingdale

    Video by Catherine Hollingdale
  • Follow fish parasitologist Isaure de Buron on twitter!
  • Judge halts Hawaii aquarium fishing until environmental review. By the AP.
  • There are more fish in the sea, because the Magnusson-Stevens Act is working. By George Leonard, for the Ocean Conservancy blog.

Read More “Seagrass restoration, seabirds, and sea turducken! Thursday Afternoon Dredging: November 2, 2017” »

Cecil the Lion 2 years later, spawning crayfish, and extreme ice: Thursday Afternoon Dredging: July 6th, 2017

Posted on July 6, 2017 By David Shiffman
Uncategorized

 

Cuttings (short and sweet):

  • Watch this spotted eagle ray swim in Arkive footage.

    Footage from Arkive
  • Follow Samantha Leigh, a graduate student investigating (among other things) how bonnethead sharks can digest seagrass, on twitter.
  • Cecil the lion was killed 2 years ago, and wildlife authorities still struggle to protect animals in the park where he lived. By Christina Nunez, for National Geographic.
  • Rare footage of crayfish spawning captured by divers in a marine reserve off Wellington, New Zealand. By Ruby Macandrew, for Stuff.

Read More “Cecil the Lion 2 years later, spawning crayfish, and extreme ice: Thursday Afternoon Dredging: July 6th, 2017” »

Public passion for shark finning bans is great. How do we channel it towards other issues?

Posted on January 9, 2014January 9, 2014 By David Shiffman 14 Comments on Public passion for shark finning bans is great. How do we channel it towards other issues?
Conservation, Science

A recent proposal in New Zealand to outlaw shark finning received more than 45,000 public comments from all over the world, a staggering amount of public interest in fisheries policy. This is great news, because though many activists don’t really know what it means, shark finning is a major threat. Shark finning may well be the most brutal and wasteful method of gathering food in the history of human civilization, and  New Zealand was one of the few developed nations that still legally allowed any form of  the practice. Though there are still some significant issues with New Zealand’s proposal, it was  still very exciting to see so much public passion for an issue that few cared about, or even knew about, when I was growing up.

However, a finning ban is merely a first step, for the most part only controlling how sharks are killed, not how many are killed. A recent study showed that finning bans alone were insufficient to ensure sustainable fisheries. In many nations (including the United States), the interested public has a role to play in implementing all or most of the next steps a comprehensive sustainable fisheries policy for sharks and other fishes. Unfortunately, we haven’t seen anywhere near the same level of public engagement in other shark conservation issues as we see for big, flashy issues like bans on finning.

Read More “Public passion for shark finning bans is great. How do we channel it towards other issues?” »

This Week in the Deep

Posted on January 12, 2013January 25, 2013 By Andrew Thaler
Science

New and noteworthy publications in deep-sea science for the week of January 7, 2013.

Deep Sea Research Part 1: Oceanographic Research Papers: Discovery of a new hydrothermal vent based on an underwater, high-resolution geophysical survey

 

A new hydrothermal vent site in the Southern Mariana Trough has been discovered using acoustic and magnetic surveys conducted by the Japan Agency for Marine–Earth Science and Technology’s (JAMSTEC) autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) Urashima. The high-resolution magnetic survey, part of near-bottom geophysical mapping around a previously known hydrothermal vent site, the Pika site, during YK09-08 cruise in June-July 2009, found that a clear magnetization low extends ~500 m north from the Pika site. Acoustic signals, suggesting hydrothermal plumes, and 10 m-scale chimney-like topographic highs were detected within this low magnetization zone by a 120 kHz side-scan sonar and a 400 kHz multibeam echo sounder. In order to confirm the seafloor sources of the geophysical signals, seafloor observations were carried out using the deep-sea manned submersible Shinkai 6500 during the YK 10-10 cruise in August 2010. These discovered a new hydrothermal vent site (12°55.30′N, 143°38.89′E; at a depth of 2922 m), which we have named the Urashima site. This hydrothermal vent site covers an area of approximately 300 m x 300 m and consists of black and clear smoker chimneys, brownish-colored shimmering chimneys, and inactive chimneys. All of the fluids sampled from the Urashima and Pika sites have chlorinity greater than local ambient seawater, suggesting subseafloor phase separation or leaching from rocks in the hydrothermal reaction zone. End-member compositions of the Urashima and Pika fluids suggest that fluids from two different sources feed the two sites, even though are located on the same knoll and separated by only ~500 m. We demonstrate that investigations on hydrothermal vent sites located in close proximity to one another can provide important insights into subseafloor hydrothermal fluid flow, and also that, while such hydrothermal sites are difficult to detect by conventional plume survey methods, high-resolution underwater geophysical surveys provide an effective means.

 

Read More “This Week in the Deep” »

Kakapo: The world’s largest parrot and the birth of active conservation

Posted on January 4, 2012 By David Shiffman 8 Comments on Kakapo: The world’s largest parrot and the birth of active conservation
Conservation

Our world is facing a biodiversity crisis so severe that many scientists have labeled it as the sixth great mass extinction in Earth’s history. Conservation efforts to date have focused on endangered species and  “biodiversity hotspots” , relatively small areas with large numbers of species. Most of these hotspots are in areas you’d expect them to be, places like coral reefs and tropical rain forests. One surprising biodiversity hotspot is New Zealand.

Though New Zealand is best known for it’s two largest islands, the country has over 700 islands larger than one hectare. Additionally, New Zealand is isolated- hundreds of miles of Pacific ocean separate it from Australia, and it’s farther still from Asia or South America.  Similar to the Galapagos, this isolation has led to an extremely high rate of “endemic” species, plants and animals that are native to an area and aren’t found anywhere else on Earth.

New Zealand is particularly famous for its unique birds. You may have heard of the kiwi, a word which has become slang for a New Zealander*, but this nation is also known as the “seabird capital of the world“. In total, there are more than 60 endemic bird species found there.

Read More “Kakapo: The world’s largest parrot and the birth of active conservation” »

Traveling the world in 140 characters or less: How Twitter got me a trip to New Zealand

Posted on November 7, 2011December 9, 2011 By David Shiffman 1 Comment on Traveling the world in 140 characters or less: How Twitter got me a trip to New Zealand

Last May, I attended the 2nd International Marine Conservation Congresss, an interdisciplinary conference that brought together scientists, NGOs, policymakers, and interested members of the general public. It was the largest professional meeting dedicated to saving the oceans in history, and it was an honor to be a part of it. In addition to seeing old friends and meeting some of my heroes, I took the opportunity to “live-Tweet” the talks I attended. Whenever a presenter made an important point, I summarized it in a Tweet, and, whenever possible, I included relevant hashtags (#Shark, #bycatch) and links to more information (either a website or published paper affiliated with the presenter, or one from a 3rd party working in the same field).

Read More “Traveling the world in 140 characters or less: How Twitter got me a trip to New Zealand” »

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